


the wolf and the deer

by wrenkos



Series: our thoughts are ours alone (ndrv3 character studies) [2]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 19:49:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13278651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrenkos/pseuds/wrenkos
Summary: NDRV3 SPOILERSThat, he realized, was how uselessness felt - cold and painful.He had finally found the words to express how he felt, but he thought, that in order to do that, that he needed to feel useless for a very long, long time.





	the wolf and the deer

**Author's Note:**

> tw for descriptions of animal death and strangulation

Gonta Gokuhara, more than anything, wanted to be able to help others.

He thought himself not a very smart boy, yes - so trials weren’t an option for him to be able to help. He thought, maybe physical strength would help? But then, but then he realized that physically, he was not strong enough to fight Monokuma. And he knew, after the first trial that he didn’t want to think about, that being strong maybe wasn’t a good thing.

But he still wanted to help, and he wasn’t sure what to do.

The insect meet and greet with Kokichi didn’t work out, and it just made everybody more scared of bugs. And more scared of him, he thought.

 _But Gonta wants to help his friends,_ he thought, and although the bugs in his lab were his friends, they weren’t his human friends who were stuck in the killing game. _And every day, Gonta’s friends get more and more scared, and Gonta doesn’t know what to do._

He didn’t know what to do.

It was a very unsettling feeling.

He was sure that others who were better with words, his friends that were smarter than him, would know how to describe the feeling. He was sure Saihara-kun, Shinguuji-kun, and maybe even Shirogane-san would know how he felt.

But he didn’t want to go talk to them, because then Gonta would be a burden, right?

And, if Gonta wasn’t able to help, Gonta didn’t want to be a burden, because that would mean he wouldn’t be able to help because he was a burden and because he was an idiot.

He was lost.

He had never gotten lost back at home, in the forest. He had known every path in the forest, every tree and what they meant, every animal track, every bug, and every star in the sky.

But now, even though there were some same bugs, there was no same “route”.

It was different.

It was very, very different.

The stars were different. The people were different.

The people were different from him, he thought.

The people were able to help, he thought.

He put the last bug into its container. The green walls of the room were different, different, different. Weird.  

But even if everything was different, and weird, Gonta was the same.

Gonta was the same.

But Gonta wasn’t a very smart boy.

So did that mean that Gonta was the same idiot?

* * *

He wondered, and wondered, and he thought, he didn’t usually think this much.

He thought and thought on how to be useful.

His friends were not okay. He knew this. He didn’t have to be an idiot to see that.

How could he help?

* * *

He thought, and thought some more. Eventually, he came to a conclusion, but it didn’t help his case on how to help others. Not really.

He realized, that even the dead could be helpful. _Are_ helpful, he thought.

Akamatsu-san helped make them all friends, and because of her, they all were filled with strength. They all promised to be friends because of her, and they all were closer to each other because of her. That was how she helped.

Amami-kun had helped, because he had said something about the ‘Ultimate Hunt’ before the Ultimate Hunt had been shown to them with the light he didn’t quite understand. He was a piece of a puzzle, even though he was dead.

Toujou-san helped them, and helped them all a lot when she was alive. She was very motherly, he knew, and he knew now that his life wasn’t “allowed” to be traded for hers. But she was still helpful, because her death had taught them all to tell each other things. Or bad things would happen.

(He didn’t like what that taught him, but he knew that Toujou-san still helped them from beyond the grave anyways.)

Hoshi-kun helped, bit by bit. In small little pieces. He knew that Hoshi-kun, at the beginning, had said that he could die and they could all live. He was “used” by Toujou-san, but he let them all live instead.

(He didn’t like what that taught, either, but he knew that Hoshi-kun helped in his own ways. He knew that Hoshi-kun would never admit to helping, because he was just that kind of person.)

So, he thought, and he lay on his bed, and stared at the ceiling that had no stars, even if he was dead, he could still help.

* * *

Gonta wanted to be of use to everybody.

The dead could still help.

Yonaga-san said that if he joined the Student Council, that they could bring the dead back (and the dead could help from beyond the grave, so he knew that they could help when they were alive!) if he helped her.

Gonta wanted to be of use to everybody.

And when he was hugged by Yonaga-san, he felt a warm, fuzzy feeling. Yonaga-san said it was Kami-sama, and he believed her.

He liked the feeling, he thought.

(It made him feel useful.)

* * *

He failed.

He failed?

He failed. He had failed to protect his friends. And now, this time, three had gone - Yonaga-san, Chabashira-san, and Shinguuji-kun.

And he failed to help Amami-kun come back, too.

He had failed, failed, failed, failed.

Kami-sama was gone. Gone with Angie, he thought.

He didn’t like the feeling anymore.

* * *

He thought, he was useless.

He thought, Gonta is an idiot.

He knew, Gonta is an idiot.

* * *

He realized he knew what he felt like. He realized he knew what being useless felt like.

Once, when he was very little, in the forest, he had seen a wolf, and a deer. It was snowy, and it was cold, and he was a little cold, too. The wolf was different. He didn’t know the wolf, though.

The wolf was eating the deer.

But the deer was still alive.

He saw pain in it’s eyes, and it looked at him as if begging, begging for him to do something, and he didn’t know what to do, because he didn’t know the wolf, and the wolf didn’t know him, and they weren’t friends yet.

He thought, now, he was the deer, and Monokuma was the wolf.

He knew that the deer had a lot more pain than him, but he was feeling useless, useless, useless, and he knew that emotional pain hurt a lot, too.

So Monokuma and the killing game were eating at his heart?

And he was the deer?

No, he thought. He was still himself.

He was the deer, and Monokuma and the killing game was the wolf, and his heart was being eaten. And he was looking at himself, but his self didn’t know what to do, and him as the deer didn’t know what to do, and it was cold, and it hurt.

That, he realized, was how uselessness felt.

Cold and painful.

He had finally found the words, but he thought, that in order to do that, that he needed to feel useless for a very long, long time.

* * *

 

Yumeno-san said that you held your chopsticks in your right hand.

So he looked down at this hands, and thought, that the one that he used to wave at people must be the right hand, right?

(He was wrong, wrong, wrong wrong wrong wrong and he didn’t know that he didn’t want to be wrong.)

He plugged the cord in.

(He didn’t know yet.)

He put the helmet on.

(He didn’t know what his actions would result in.)

* * *

The virtual world had everybody’s strength the same. So even his physical strength, which helped others but didn’t really help others at the same time, didn’t help anybody because it wasn’t there anymore.

So he thought, he was even more useless, and he could help even less.

(He thought, he was even more of a burden.)

He wondered, since people looked funnier in this other place, could they see his facial expressions better or worse?

(How detailed could you see the dying deer?)

* * *

Ouma-kun told him to check the flashback light first, because just in case the secret of the outside world hurt everybody, he could make sure it didn’t.

So he turned on the light.

* * *

So much despair he wanted to die.

So much despair he wanted to _die._

He held in a scream.

(Because that wouldn’t help anyone.)

He was useless to the inside world, and he was useless to the outside world. Because the outside world couldn’t help him. And he couldn’t help it.

“What did you see, what did you see?” Ouma asked, and poked him, and poked him. Because he didn’t know.

“T-There’s,” he couldn’t speak. Uselessness never made him want to die before. “The outside world…”

“Yeah, yeah!” Ouma punched his shoulder lightly and playfully this time, “What about it?”

“There’s...nothing left.”

* * *

Ouma-kun said that, they were all better off dying not knowing, because then they could die without knowing what they were fighting for.

(It was like the deer, right? The deer would have suffered less if it had been killed before it was eaten.)

A mercy kill.

A mercy kill?

Yes, he thought, and although he wasn’t smart and maybe he wasn’t as strong as he used to be in this different world, but he could still help everybody…

...But it felt so, so wrong.

He loved his friends, though. The friends that he had lost and the friends he still had.

He was so, so very sorry, but he thought - and he agreed that - that they all would be better off not knowing.

_I’m sorry. Gonta’s so, so sorry._

* * *

He was crying, and his vision became blurred as he took the toilet paper and pulled. Iruma wanted to kill Ouma, that much was clear, and he couldn’t...do this.

“Gonta’s sorry, Gonta’s sorry, Gonta’s sorry, sorry, sorry--”

And yet, he had to do this.

He kept pulling.

Iruma didn’t say anything in return.

* * *

It was over.

He wanted to think, finally, but that was wrong because he didn’t want to do this, but knew he had to, and it hurt, so, so much.

When she fell lifelessly onto the ground with an unnatural _thunk_ , he squeezed his eyes shut and curled his hands into fists.

He wanted it to stop. He wanted the despair to stop, he wanted everything to stop, he wanted... this to end.

But he had to keep going with the plan.

For everyone.

For all his friends.

* * *

He took the lattice and pushed her, and hoped his fears would go along with it. Hoped that everything would turn out how he wanted it.

* * *

Return the toilet paper to the washroom, Kokichi had said. Then nobody will know what the murder weapon was because it’s not at the scene, Kokichi had said.

He could climb down with the toilet paper, Kokichi had said.

He was doing so, and his hands were shaking because - he had seen animals kill each other before, but never of their own kind, and he was human and Iruma was human, and he killed her and he was going to send all his friends to their doom --

He spotted Shirogane and Saihara, and, in a split-second decision of panic, threw the toilet paper far, far away.

“Gokuhara-kun! Did you see Kiibo-kun around here?”

“Kiibo-kun?” he echoed. “No, Gonta hasn’t seen him.”

Shirogane looked around nervously, as if trying to spot anybody, anything, “H-Huh? You didn’t? But I heard his voice close by...Then, did something fall off the roof? Y-You heard that loud noise, right?”

It was Iruma-san.

“Gonta heard noise, but Gonta did not see anything…”

A lie. He did see, he did hear, because he did it.

But he had to act like he didn’t know anymore.

Because to them, ‘we’ didn’t include him anymore.

‘We’ was them, and they would die.

And Monokuma would keep him alive.

His two friends, in front of him, would die.

“We need to know why Kiibo-kun screamed,” Saihara said, “We need to head over to the chapel.”

Chapel. Where he had pushed Iruma to.

_Gonta’s sorry._

“Y-Yeah...you’re right.”

_Gonta’s an idiot._

_But Gonta knows that this is for the better._

* * *

Amidst the confusion, he thought.

Gonta knows what happened, he thought.

He knew why they heard Kiibo-kun scream - because the wall wasn’t a wall but a connection, Kokichi had explained that.

He knew what they were panicking about - Iruma-san.

He didn’t say anything.

Perhaps he could be useful for them, one last time, he thought, and picked up the signboard.

* * *

They were going back.

...Going back.

They were going to see Iruma-san, and…

And then they would all die.

He didn’t want that.

But he didn’t want them all to live, either.

Because then they would figure out.

* * *

He picked up the telephone, and thought, he would have to send them all to death.

But there was nothing he could do now.

“Gonta Gokuhara…”

A ring of light around his feet. 

_Gonta’s an idiot._

_Gonta’s sorry._

_Gonta’s so, so, sorry, Iruma-san._

* * *

He woke up.

He didn’t remember.

(He was an idiot, because he didn’t know that switching the cords would result in this.)

* * *

 

He saw Iruma-san.

He wanted to  _scream._

She was dead. Not breathing.

He thought, something horrible happened while Gonta was asleep?

That meant that, once again, he had failed to protect his friends. He had failed again. 

He was useless. 

She had died a horrible, horrible death and she didn't deserve that. Perhaps, he thought, he could have helped her, he could have saved her, but he didn't, because he was sleeping. 

Once again, he was the deer, feeling useless, useless, useless.

(He didn’t know that this time, he was the wolf.)

* * *

 

He thought, why did it happen again?

He thought, who could have done this?

(He didn't know yet.) 

**Author's Note:**

> haha,,, so happy late new years i guess?? h  
> i've had this sitting in my drafts for a while and thought,,fuck. might as well start 2018 suffering


End file.
